Tokyo Olympic Committee Embraces Esports Before the Games Begin

The International Olympic Committee is inaugurating its first Olympic Virtual Series today, kicking off more than a month of competitive play across video-game simulations of baseball, rowing, sailing, cycling and motorsport.

This embrace of esports may prove the IOC’s least controversial move this year as the organization prepares to stage the delayed 2020 Olympics under a cloud of doubt about its safety with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among those groups, esports are an established billion-dollar genre with an audience approaching half a billion people in 2021, according to Newzoo estimates. Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch serves millions of daily viewers an endless diet of live-streamed gaming, both competitive and casual, and Valve Corp.’s Dota 2 hosts an annual championship with a fan-funded prize pool that will exceed $40 million t

“The OVS creates a stage to connect the physical sporting world with the virtual,” the organizers said in their announcement.

The need for virtual recreations of real-world sports has never been more pressing, with Olympics host city Tokyo currently under a state of emergency to arrest the spread of the coronavirus.

The attraction of the OVS is that it sidesteps those issues by giving competitors a safe and equitable playing field that adheres much more closely to the Olympic credo of expanding access and involvement.

The IOC has said that it hopes to expand the OVS as a satellite operation for Paris 2024 and beyond. This year’s OVS runs from Thursday until June 23. The Olympics kick off a month after that, on July 23.

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